


Helianthus

by Irrealia



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bilbo Remains In Erebor, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Clockpunk, Cultural Differences, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Jewish Dwarves, M/M, Seasonal Affective Disorder, steampunk dwarves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irrealia/pseuds/Irrealia
Summary: Hobbits prefer sunshine, and winters in Erebor are dark and difficult. Thorin's approach, naturally, is to seek a technical solution to Bilbo's problems.





	Helianthus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KBBearen (KDRBear)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDRBear/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, KBBearen! 
> 
> The Hanukkah-like festival of Mahu Khazad Dûm, and other references to Dwarvish and Hobbitish festivals in Reclaimed Erebor, are based on a lovely story written last year by [HiddenKitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenKitty/pseuds/HiddenKitty) called ["Traditions"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8879425). Kitty has very graciously given me permission to reference them here. Thank you Kitty!

Bilbo Baggins was not very good at being a hobbit, which had always been fairly obvious to him. Other than his generous appetite and round, stout figure, he might have easily been mistaken for something else—if there were any other sort of creature he might be mistaken for. He loathed gossip, avoided his relations at every turn, and as much as he loved the lush Shire countryside, he had to hire a gardener to have anything resembling a proper garden. 

Really, at a certain point in his life, running away from all things hobbitish had seemed the obvious thing to do. This was, of course, yet another reason why Bilbo wasn’t very good at being a hobbit, and the very fact that he _had_ run off seemed to confirm to him the very rightness of it. When he decided to stay in Erebor, he had thought he might have an easier time as an ill-made hobbit amongst people who had no expectations of what being a hobbit meant.

The trouble was, that didn’t mean they didn’t have any expectations at _all_.  What time had also made painfully obvious to him, was that normalcy was a plague upon all societies, and that even though he wasn’t a very good hobbit, he was possibly an even worse dwarf. He’d always thought of himself as a decidedly indoor-type of person—until the outdoors wasn’t much of an option anymore. Through spring and summer and fall, Bilbo could wander outside as freely as he pleased, but the winters of the Northeast were long and bitter and dark. As Yule drew near—not that Dwarves celebrated Yule—the first rays of sunlight only deigned to make their way through Erebor’s few windows after second breakfast, and were gone quite before it was time for dinner. It was late in Foreyule now, and they had just finished celebrating Mahu Khazad Dûm, a modest celebration of candles and light and the stars in Durin’s crown, which did suggest that even the dwarves missed the light a bit.

But only a bit. The thing was, dwarves really _liked_ the deep caverns of the mountains. They liked the pale glint of candlelight on stone. They liked the stars that crowned Durin, the radiance of the jewels of the night.

It was pretty, but it could never be enough, when what Bilbo missed was _the sun_.

And although leaving Thorin was out of the question, he did wonder now, well into his fourth winter in Erebor, whether he mightn’t be happier, back in the Shire, where the winters were mild, and the land quick to green, and warm smials were always filled with fire and sunlight, all the year round. Where things were built for creatures like him. Where things were built for  _hobbits_. 

—

“I haven’t seen the Prince Consort in ages,” said Balin to Thorin, as he helped the king ready himself for the day’s public audience. “Are you sure he’s quite alright?” Thorin merely grunted, as he hefted his great fur cloak onto his shoulders. “It’s the winter,” he replied, once he had firmly secured the heavy cloak. “Hobbits don’t seem well-suited to cold, however proud mine may be of his hardy feet.”

“Well that may be, laddie,” said Balin. “But Bilbo doesn’t suffer for want of fine furs to keep him warm—nor does he even lack boots, when the snow and ice prove too much for those proud feet.”

Thorin grunted again, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. It pained him to think of Bilbo unhappy; it pained him to add another worry to the mountain-sized pile he already had. “Perhaps it is something else about this time of year, then. We have spoken of Yule—of friends and family and green fir bowers all throughout the mountain…” he trailed off. Though the folk of Ered Luin and the folk of the Shire had dealt with each other often enough, it had been just that—dealing. Trade. Before Bilbo, the only thing he really knew of hobbits was their blasted affection for haggling.

“I should ask,” he finished.

“Yes laddie, you should ask,” said Balin, and led Thorin out the door into the throne room.

—

Bilbo was dozing when Thorin came home, long after sunset (which meant so little when the sun set so early). His dinner was cold on the table, in fact; the page who had brought it had come in and out so quietly, not wanting to disturb the prince snoring gently by the fireplace, bundled under a pile of furs in his favorite armchair.

Bilbo sleeping through a meal worried Thorin more than anything possibly ever had since the Battle of the Five Armies.

He moved closer, as softly as a dwarf might, not wanting to wake Bilbo suddenly. Upon inspection, Bilbo was warm and snug as could be. His face was a bit flushed from the fire even, though he didn’t seem feverish or sick. But Thorin observed that his forehead was creased as if he was deep in thought, dreadfully worried, even in sleep. Thorin touched a broad, callused thumb to Bilbo’s forehead and gently smoothed the lines away, as if by doing so, he could smooth away whatever troubled him.

Bilbo stirred under Thorin’s touch, and woke, looking up at him with bleary, confused eyes that didn’t quite seem to focus. “Thorin?” asked Bilbo. “When did you get home? What time is it?”

“Later than you’d like,” said Thorin, gesturing at dinner. Bilbo’s eyes did manage to focus finally on the food, and he pried himself out of his chair forthwith, clucking disappointedly all the while as he made his way to the table.

“Supper will be ‘round soon, if you’d prefer something warm,” said Thorin, which he said in an encouraging tone, but which only made Bilbo’s eyes go wider as he realised just how late it was, and how little he’d eaten all day. He set to attacking the food on the table with a ferocity that reminded Thorin of a hungry little pebble, and when supper came, as promised, some 45 minutes later, Bilbo cheerfully attacked that too (although Thorin got his share).

—

The sun meant little to dwarves, when it came to telling time. For that matter, _days_ meant little to dwarves, as far as Bilbo could tell. If Thorin kept anything resembling a diurnal schedule, Bilbo assumed that it was probably to do with all the time he’d spent on the road and in the towns of men, acquiring some of their habits. Life inside the mountain for other dwarves, though, seemed to be constantly moving—or at least, whatever it was that moved dwarves to do things wasn’t motivated by any natural force that Bilbo could feel. Thorin had explained, ages ago, about “stone sense,” but Bilbo reckoned that, for all of Thorin’s metaphors about feeling the pulse of the earth in the veins of her stones, it was like trying to explain the taste of a food you’d never had before. It would be impossible to understand, until you tasted it. And Bilbo, being a hobbit, never could. 

Most of the time, Bilbo appreciated Thorin's hobbit-like habits. In the winter, though, Thorin’s acknowledgement of days mattered less to Bilbo when he rose long before the first light, and went to sleep long after sundown. Bilbo himself hardly knew when to sleep and when to wake, when to work and when to eat, with the days so compressed. One day—night?—deep in winter, just before—or was it just after?—Yule proper—Bilbo was disoriented enough in the Northern dark to grab at Thorin’s tunic and attempt, however vainly, to drag him back into bed.

“S’not morning,” he murmured, still half asleep. “Day doesn’t begin until it’s morning.”

“It’s time to get to work,” said Thorin, gently prising Bilbo’s fingers one by one from the fine wool of his tunic.

“S’not,” said Bilbo. “Because it’s not tomorrow yet, because there’s no sun.”

Thorin frowned.

“It’s still tonight,” said Bilbo, with all the logical certainty of someone half-asleep. 

“Then I had better come back to bed,” said Thorin, surrendering. He curled himself around Bilbo, petting and scratching his head until Bilbo fell back asleep. Neither woke again until the sun rose, pale in the ash-coloured sky. The rays slanted through a great glass panel in the side of the king’s chambers, splashing warmth and light across the bed. Bilbo turned towards it like a grateful little plant; Thorin watched him sleepily, as a crystal of an idea began to form in his mind.

—

Thorin consulted the astronomers, first—odd dwarves they were, who tried to understand the rhythms of all things celestial. There was something sort of fundamentally _pointy-eared_ about that much stargazing, Thorin couldn’t help thinking, something decidedly _undwarvish_ about fixating on something other than the soil and rock and clay of dear Arda, but they knew things about the sun and the seasons, the days and the nights and the rules that governed why the nights were short in winter and long in summer. And it was this knowledge that Thorin needed to start with. His next stop was at the guild of the clockmakers, to see if they could build him a device that could turn a light on, after so many hours of darkness. Finally, he went to the lamp makers, to make him a oil lamp, backed with mirrors like what the miners used, to amplify it. Except bigger, much bigger, to light up much more than a patch of rock.

Eventually, with two or three guilds working together, they were able to devise…. Well. A device. Quite frankly, the thing was unwieldy, though Thorin’s own iron-smithing abilities had gone into building a filigree housing for the whole thing, as attractively as he could manage. It consisted of an astoundingly large and sturdy earthenware pot, with a number of fat cotton wicks, and a giant, clear glass chimney atop it, to protect the flame from any wind. Behind the pot was a great curved mirror as tall as Bilbo himself, polished to perfection, which was meant to reflect the light all around the room.  At the back was a crank for winding a set of clockwork gears, which would count down the hours. After twelve hours of darkness, a little clockwork arm would move about, cleverly striking flint over each of the wicks, setting them ablaze with mechanical perfection each time. In another twelve hours, a second arm would put out the wicks for the evening. The next day, the cycle would begin all over again, just exactly as the sun would rise or set on an average, non-wintery day.

Perhaps there wasn’t exactly a beautiful way to build it, which didn’t sit well with any of the crafters involved. They resolved to call it a prototype, and Thorin promised to report back on whether or not it even worked.

—

They snuck it in at night, with terrible care, and as much stealth as dwarves possess. Bilbo would have awakened, ordinarily, but he slept like a stone these days—not at all like the careful hobbit burglar Thorin had first known. The thing was then wound and set, all ready to come to life and light in just a few short hours. Thorin quietly shed some layers, then crawled into bed with Bilbo. He was so nervous and excited that he didn’t expect to be able to sleep at all, but Bilbo’s slow and steady breathing soon caught him up in a sleepy rhythm, and he nodded off almost without even knowing it.

—

The clock ticked on. When it was time, light spread through the room, the brightness increasing bit by bit as the clockwork arm lit each thick wick on the great mirrored sun lamp. It was more dramatic than a sunrise by far, being much quicker and closer than the sun, and it woke Thorin instantly. Bilbo, however, only started to stir after the lamp had been fully lit for some time. His eyes opened slowly, blinking in the light, and he turned towards Thorin, confused as ever a hobbit was, confused and concerned. 

“How on earth… Thorin, you shouldn’t have slept so late!” cried Bilbo, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and shaking his head.

“No no, ‘ibinê, we didn’t sleep late at all,” said Thorin, gently wrapping his large hands around Bilbo’s, and pulling them away from his face. “Look,” said Thorin, and Bilbo looked, squinting, at the great shining lamp, awkward thing that it was, and he shook his head again.

“It’s a lamp,” said Thorin.

Bilbo stared some more.

“It’s for you,” Thorin added, not knowing what to make of Bilbo’s reaction.

“What time _is_ it?” asked Bilbo finally.

“Too soon for the sun of the North to rise,” said Thorin. “Which is why I made this.”

“It’s astoundingly ugly,” said Bilbo, who doubled over into a fit of laughter. “But,” he wheezed out, “it’s very, very bright.”

Thorin tried to hide the slightly wounded expression on his face, but Bilbo, as soon as the laughter had passed, was astute enough to notice anyway, and wiped it away with a grateful kiss.

“How did you know?” asked Bilbo. “How did you know to build this for me?”

“Balin said to ask you,” said Thorin. “But you were telling me anyway. All I needed to do was listen.”

“You tried to give me the sun,” said Bilbo, who was chuckling again, and shaking his head, hand pressed up against the lines of his forehead, which was wrinkled with affection and disbelief. “You tried to give me the sodding sun.”

Thorin knew Bilbo well enough by now to know that this was a form of approval.

“It works, then?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Bilbo, who was basking in the light now, like a blade of grass poking out desperately through the thick mountain snows. “I think it just might work.”

 

~fin~


End file.
